Ghost Fleet Septimus
by defiasstone2
Summary: In the wake of Hive fleet Behemoth, much is told of the heroic sacrifices of the Ultramarines chapter, the battle of Maccrage and the many heroes associated with it. However, these were not the only heroes of the tyrannic war, countless systems were consumed in the path of the hive fleet before it was finally stopped. This is the tale of one such system and its survivors


Persona: Vice Governor Aquila

_My name is Aquila, once Vice Governor of the Merdythia system in the Ultramar Sector. I use the word once because according to the most recent of Imperial Calendars that we have found on our travels all the planets in that system have been lifeless hulks for the best part of a century, destroyed in the advance of the terrible xenos fleet Behemoth, the foul tyranid's on the path to their own destruction at the Ultramarines own planet of Macragge, where it was destroyed under the assault of the Imperial navy, the Ultramarines own fleet and even the mysterious eldar. Due to my actions during the apocalyptic campaign as well as our unfortunate cursed existence, I was branded a traitor along with all those who served under me._

_The reasoning was that I evacuated the sparsely populated planets of Uqinox and Sythcia rather than standing and fighting to the last, therefore going directly against the orders of my superior, the Governor of the system, a corrupt and lazy individual by the name of Voss. We managed to save over 5 billion men and women, nearly half of whom were civilians, spiriting them away on board of the transport vessels and battleships of Battlefleet Septimus, which was under the command of Admiral Quarrus, a man who had faced the foul xenos before and agreed with my idea of asset denial, with each and every person we saved, we denied the hive fleet mass with which to continue its advance into imperial space._

_I went a step further, and was prepared to perform the ultimate tactic of asset denial, when my trusted guardsmen knocked me unconscious and sent me on the last transport to the fleet, even as the hive fleet arrived in its full and devastating glory. We fled into the warp, our astropaths screaming as they did so, their mystical third eye bleeding and weeping pus as they attempted to pierce the warp shadow the tyranids cast in front of their advance._

_I woke just in time to receive the feed of the unmanned sensor ship's vid feeds, showing the millions upon millions of hive spores rocketing towards the planet I grew up on, and had been prepared to die for. I am told that the death of the planet caused significant damage to the hive fleet, though the fact that my home is now little more than clumps of rock and space dust does little to make me feel at all proud of the damage._

_The fact that billions upon billions of men women and children died when they were under my protection did not lead for those that are on the ships do not hate me for what I have done. Instead they view me as their saviour, saving their lives so that they may continue fighting the dreaded enemy in the emperor's name. My name is now Commander-General Aquila of Ghost fleet Septimus, and this is the tale of how we gained our title._

Chapter 1: They are Coming.

A Shadow across the warp, a thousand chattering voices in unison, casting their presence before them. That is how our Astropaths and sanctioned psykers described the approaching xenos fleet. It approached at a ponderous but relentless rate, smashing aside system defences like a hammer upon glass.

We had of course, received visual and verbal reports from the wide eyed survivors and refugees on the few transport ships that managed to survive the terrors of the warp travel to our system, speaking of dread horrors in the night, and an endless rain of flesh and bone from the sky that blotted out suns and hives with almost unbelievable ease.

My superior and ruler of the Merdythia system Governor Voss, in accordance with his increasingly bizarre and lazy lifestyle invoked the emperor's name, stating that each and every man over the age of 18 was to enlist in the militia and prepare to defend their system from the blasted xenos, before sequestering himself in his quarters with his personal advisors, claiming he was doing 'important work' and was not too be disturbed no matter what.

This of course left the defence of the system in my hands and that of the three administrators, Kell, Jarren and Osthio. After a meeting amongst ourselves we decided that there was no other choice, we would have to hold a full war council for the first time in the history of the Merydithyia sector, and reveal onto them the true threat of what we were facing.

I sat patiently at the head of the large dark marble table as I waited for the rest of the council to arrive. The administrators sat on my right, as they always had, and soon the head of the noble factions arrived. These men could change quite quickly if careless, so it was not surprising that each brought a squad of bodyguards that had to wait outside of the massive conference chamber, under the watch of my own personal bodyguard platoon.

At exactly two minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin, Colonel Kergis of the 1st Merdythia Corps arrived, flanked by Lieutenants Rodgers and Santez, his captain aides. The Colonel was a tall stocky man, just like many of our hivers, whilst Rodgers was a slender blonde female in her early 30's, from the planet of Scythia, and Santez was small and unassuming man, though I am assured he is a dangerous man with either lasgun or sword in hand.

Just behind them were Lieutenants Derosa and Baird, from the fledgling 2nd corps. Derosa sent me an apologetic look which I assumed was due to the lack of their commanding officer, which didn't really surprise me, as he was deep in Voss's pocket so had probably ignored my summons. The Colonel and Derosa sat too my right, the aides and Baird standing behind them, obviously the two had decided who was going to face me, probably by drawing the tarot or some other ridiculous game of chance.

As the scheduled time appeared on my chrono, the doors of the conference room opened for what would hopefully be the last time, admitting the tall and imposing figure of Admiral Quarrus, the pale and gangly voidborn man in charge of Battle fleet Actimus, that had been fighting hit and run actions against the advancing fleet for almost a year now, always with the habit of arriving exactly on time to a meeting, no matter whether or not he could have got there any earlier, evidenced by the fact he had spent the afternoon with me in my private quarters, the two of us reminiscing over old cases of smugglers and pirates rather than the monstrosity approaching us.

However, this time his figure was eclipsed by the much bulkier figure in pitch black power armour that walked in behind Quarrus and the smaller, feminine figure that walked in behind the space marine with an air of authority that I had not seen from anyone other than the fabled adeptus astartes Space marines that I had occasionally had dealings with during my time as vice governor.

I stood hastily, my eyes drawn to the skull like insignia on the shoulder pad of the power armoured figure. The nobles had also noticed the sign and stood, bowing to the space marine whilst I instead bowed to the young woman who was still stood with Quarrus, knowing that the Inquisitor had sent the power armoured figure in first for this exact reason.

"Inquisitor, I had no idea that any of the Inquisition had any interest in our system, shall I alert Governor Voss for you? He is probably the most suitable to help with your enquiries" My actions drew a small smile from the female as she shook her head, her blonde hair swaying lightly at the motion, and she reached up with a dainty hand to move the errant locks back into place.

"There will be no need to inform this Voss person, Admiral Quarrus informed me that you had called this council, so therefore it is you, Vice-Governor Aquila that I am interested in." The nobles had worked out that they had been bowing to the wrong person, and all three tried to apologise graciously, cause the inquisitor to frown slightly before waving her hand imperiously.

"Quiet! Now, be seated, the faster this meeting begins, the faster we can take action." She turned her head towards the power armoured figure "Ios, if you could wait outside and make sure that no one else disturbs us?" The figure half nodded then paused as if realising what the instruction meant and spoke hurriedly.

"Are you sure my lady? I don't know if I should leave you al…" the woman's eyes narrowed and the newly named Ios stopped hastily, which I noticed with some interest. "Of course my lady, your will be done." He stomped back to the doors, his heavy footfalls punctuating the cracking of the delicate floor tiles beneath his feet.

As the doors closed, the Inquisitor sat down at the far end of the table, directly in front of me. "Whenever you are ready governor, time is lives now." Her voice now contained a underflow of something that I couldn't identify, but I shook it off and nodded.

"As you have all no doubt heard, a massive and terrible xenos fleet approaches our sector and despite the most gallant efforts of our navy, we seem to be unable to stop it with our available forces." I waved my hand towards the table in front of the council, and a three dimensional view of our sector appeared, courtesy of a techpriest waiting on the edge of the room watching my every move.

"This is our sector, this is our home. I have come up with a plan for the defence, but it focuses mainly on the defence of Merdythia itself, as the other two planets are too scarcely populated to form a reasonable defence." It was interesting I noticed, to see how little reaction Rodgers gave to the news of her planet being abandoned. Regardless I continued on with my directions, I could wonder about the man at a later point if I got some time to myself

"Admiral, would it be possible to transport the populations of those planets to here? Give us more men to fight with against the enemy?" Quarrus nodded after a moment of thought, which was hardly surprising as we had discussed the idea before, though he was noticeably nervous of the Inquisitor at the end of the table, with good reason I thought harshly, the Inquisition were never good news to anyone they met with.

"Aye, though it would take time, maybe two weeks to get the word out and get them gathered, and another week to get them boarded, but it's certainly feasible." I nodded "good, now let us find out what we have to fight the enemy with, Colonel Kergis?" The man nodded and stood

"As of muster today, we have 500,000 infantrymen fully trained and ready to fight. In total we have almost a million true guardsmen and 1.5 million conscripts that have just finished their required training, including administration and command aides. Our ammo is well stocked and we have a full quota of heavy weapons and mortars, with crews ready and trained to use them. Our sentinel numbers are below the required amount due to difficulties in production in the last quarter. Our other mechanised units are fully prepared however, meaning we have nearly 10,000 leman russ tanks, and a 1000 basilisks ready and functioning."

He took a breath, his face red with the constant stream of words before he continued. "Our auxiliary units consist of almost 300,000 men and women from the two outlying planets, with another 500,000 people on those planets that have done conscription in the last 10 years, so will be able to fight effectively as well. Lastly we have 400 lightning hawk fighters, 200 marauder bombers and 4,000 valkyries make up our air support."

He sat, looking quietly pleased with himself as Derosa stood uncertainly, drawing herself up and repeating something to herself silently several times before beginning to speak nervously, causing me to arch an eyebrow. Had I really made myself out to be that much of a bogeyman that the guardsmen were nervous of my response to their expected subpar report?

"My lords, as of this morning, we have 650,000 men and women as part of our infantry platoons, mainly made up of underhivers, so they are experienced but undisciplined. Our conscription quotas were reduced by 30% by Colonel Volander, who claimed it would help save fuel and ammunition from training the recruits. The training itself has been sporadic, as Volander prefers to focus on drill and parade form rather than fighting prowess." She shivered slightly under my unwavering stare and I couldn't help but feel slightly sorry for her, having only been in a position of command for three months, it was natural that she was feeling the strain of such a difficult position.

Baird stepped in, obviously trying to save their corps pride. "Our Equipment is all well maintained and due to the lack of training, we have enough surplus heavy weaponry to fit 5 additional heavy weapons companies and their infantry attachments. Our Vehicles have been maintained by myself and our cadre of tech priests, and I can offer our full complement plus 100 extra leman Russ's, twenty leman russ vanquishers and 1 shadowsword super heavy tank." I will admit, that is the first piece of information that I hadn't known of as I walked in, and I could see I wasn't the only one. Kergis looked outraged but before he could build up sufficient fury to start one of his parade ground rants the Inquisitor spoke up in a serious but still polite manner that had my back hairs rise.

"It is evident your superiors didn't know of these developments Lieutenant, why did you keep it to yourself?" Baird looked a little abashed, but kept his head high as he started to explain his actions. "Governor Voss decreed that the Shadowsword tank, which was badly damaged during the taking of this planet almost 10 millenia ago, should be left as it was as proof of the emperors power rather than repaired so that it could be used once more. So if I had told anyone I would have just ended up on charges and the thing melted down or worse."

I nodded, it sounded like the type of ridiculous law Voss would pass when I wasn't looking or from before I rose to my current position of power. I decided that such risky behaviour needed to be rewarded for the prize we were presented with. "In this case, your ingenuity is a boon to us Lieutenant, I assume you must have had the sacred blueprints to the machine in order to repair it?"

Baird nodded unsurely, not following my line of thought, and it was evident by the raised eyebrows in the room that he wasn't the only one. The inquisitor again was the one to ask the question "Why do you ask Governor, what is your plan?" I grinned, and motioned again, the screen changing to that of Merdythia prime, the main hive on the planet.

"This will be the easiest point to defend, and therefore will be where we shall fight the aliens to a standstill when they do attack. We have heard of the rain of spores in the reports, to counter this, we shall concentrate our AA protection to here." I motion and a 10 km boundary around the hives outer walls appeared.

"This will mean the enemy will attack the hive walls on foot, and therefore have to pass our brave men and women, and the true strength of the imperial guard, our formidable quantity of firepower that we can lay down against them." I looked over at the nobles pointedly before speaking to the directly for the first time. "Vectis, your districts are too switch to the production of AA guns, emplacements and ammo, including the two factories currently producing weapons for your milita, don't think I don't know what the production figures should be."

The tallest of the nobles looked shocked and angry that I had discovered his ploy, but I moved on too swiftly for him to protest. "Ajax, you are too switch to producing heavy weapons, we must have superior firepower to stop them reaching the hive itself! Also you are too co-ordinate with Baird and his tech priests in producing some more shadowswords, if we can produce even half a dozen more, they shall be more than worth the effort."

I turn to the last of the nobles, a recent rising star that I didn't know as well as the others who had led his house to the top by toppling a succession of steadily more prominent houses through inter house wars and under the table dealings after his fathers death at the hands of a rivals assassins. "Davies, you are to produce the weapons and ammo that will be required to arm our citizens, they shall fight with us against this threat." Davies nodded and looked over to Kergis "Colonel, I have 500 militia men that are armed, trained and ready to fight. They know their way round the hives and excel at close quarters."

Before anyone could comment on the unknown precedent that the noble had set, Davies turned back to me. "I will also order the opening of our house warehouses and armouries to you Governor, what is in there is currently unknown to me, having just recently taken the mantle of Head of my house, but I shall endeavour to have a rough estimate too you by tomorrow evening." This move by Davies was interesting to say the least and I couldn't help but grin at the looks on the other two nobles faces as I nodded my head.

"That is most generous of you Davies, this shall be remembered, now I ask that you start preparing you men and factories, we shall work out more detailed requirements soon, but first I must finalise the defence positions with the colonel." The nobles nodded, understanding my dismissal for what it was without any protest and stood quickly, heading out of the room hastily, stepping cautiously around the hulking power armoured man that stood in the entranceway.

As the doors closed again I took the liberty of leaning back in my chair slightly. "Well, none of them are panicking yet, that must mean that it has gone better than expected." To my surprise it was the inquisitor that laughed whilst Kergis frowned before speaking his concerns out loud to me and the table as a whole.

"That is true, though Vectis may still be trouble yet, he is not used to being out-politicked by you still, especially in front of the others." That thought sobered the mood once more and I nodded "true, but whatever he may plan, the xenos may beat him too it if we are not careful."

I leaned forward once more, determined to get the focus back onto the looming swarm of monstrosities bearing down upon us. "Now Kergis, speak to me of defence, administrators, speak to me of supplies and equipment."

Kergis paused for a moment before beginning "I suggest that we clear the land around the hive itself as much as possible, if the enemy has to charge us through open and level terrain they will be easier targets for our men to kill. We may want to consider a series of trenches for our guardsmen to fire from whilst our heavy weapons cover from the walls above." I nodded; it was a good plan to begin with.

Baird looked at the 3-d image, and then pointed at two sections of the wall. "These areas are poorly maintained, we will need to strengthen them, as well as the gates themselves, they are not built to withstand this kind of attack."

Derosa chimed in, seemingly more confident now that I hadn't shouted at her and Baird for their actions and those of her commanders. "Also the sewage gates will need to be blocked to stop infiltrators, we have heard rumours of assassin creatures in the underhives from survivors. It will be hard to find every exit from the hive, but I can have my men sweep the underhive after this council, ensure none of these creatures are already here." I had to give it to the two, they were more than enough to make up for the ineptness of their commander, it was a shame that I could not overrule Voss and have one of them made commander.

I nodded to Kergis. "Your men are to move out and bring as many of the peoples of hive Secondus and teritus here as possible, PDF members and gangers have priority, especially if they bring weapons and equipment, we will need every gun we can get." He nodded and whispered to Santez, who stood up and left silently, obviously to go and carry out that order.

Then, I turned my attention to the three Administrators, and as was typical of the three, Kell went first, being the most forward and talkative. "I have held in our starports the last two shipments of weaponry and equipment that were to be sent to the Agryppia crusade, which means we have a million suits of flak armour and enough weapons to probably make a third regiment of guardsmen."

I nodded, for all his pomp and proprietary Kell could certainly do his job, and that job was keeping me happy. Osthio summoned his courage, the adept much more used to just delivering his reports to me alone rather than in front of so many imposing figures.

"I, I have been checking our food stores during the meeting and calculating the incoming numbers of refugees, we have enough food for almost 3 months once the hive fleet cuts off our supplies from the agriworlds. In terms of medicine and other essentials, we are well stocked, a-and I have already ordered the guard to be tr-tripled around the silos and water pumps in case of rioters."

Jarren continued without a break, his strong and deep baritone voice a stark contrast to Osthio's stuttering and tremoring, the tech priest rumoured to have been trained on mars itself. "I have been in contact with the Arbites, they are preparing to begin culling the underhives of any mutant activity, we don't want to be fighting a war on two fronts. The Ecclesiarch are activating their militia, they should be ready in a week, and should be useful to throw back any intrusions into our city." I nodded, exactly what I had had planned, but the administrators had outdone themselves with their preparedness. "Excellent work, let it not be known that we are not unprepared!"

I looked over at the last resource that I had not already assigned, though this resource was the most unlikely to yield much use. "Inquisitor" I began, noticing the glint in her eyes even as she turned to me with a smile once more "Have you any more information on our enemy that may be of use to us in planning our defence, any help at this point will save innumerable lives." Her demeanour shifted slightly, her staring becoming piercing for a fraction of a second, before she lightened again and nodded.

"I will see what I can find out Governor, it is… refreshing to find a governor that is actually competent at what they are meant to do without complaint." I smirk, obviously I have made a good impression on her, and I decided to try and improve that impression with my last words in the conversation.

"In the duty of the emperors service, there is no need for complaints, after all, the service is a reward unto itself is it not?" that grabbed her attention, it was a quote from some famous space marine chaplain during the first Armageddon war, she was obviously surprised that I knew it well enough to repeat it back word for word to her.

Her grin increased, but there was a wary glint in her eye as she stood, which made me more suspicious of her reasons for being here, especially as she still had to mention what that reason was. "Very well Governor, I leave you to you work, I imagine you have lots to prepare." She strode to the doors and pushed one open.

As she did so, the tall figure of a vindicare assassin appeared out of the shadows, pistols drawn and ready whilst the characteristic long rifle was on his back, easily in a position to be drawn if needed. The door closed once more and I waited for a moment before the head of my guards nodded, signalling that they had left and I turned to Quarrus.

"Are the Mortis missiles ready?" Quarrus nodded, some of his confidence returning now that they were out of the threat of the Inquisitors presence. "They have been moved into place, but Aquila, this is a suicidal plan you have enacted, and I'm sure that the inquisitor suspects something is amiss if you take her last words as they are."

I shrugged lightly as if disregarding the threat. "My duty is to the Emperor, and the people that I govern, and if I can save even a few of them from Voss's madness at the cost of my life so be it. The Inquisitor can suspect all she wishes, but by the time she finds out, it will be far too late, I factored her arrival in well in advance."

I had known of the approach of an inquisitor to my sector for months, the classified vessel moving ever closer to my area of space was a giant warning if nothing else. It was easy to let her know of the safe parts of the plan whilst leaving out the rest. I gestured to the tech priest, ignoring the confused looks from the others present.

The visual of the system returned, and this time faint images of the tyranid hive fleet appeared through the system, moving slowly over the worlds of Scythia and Uqinox, whilst on the other side of their twin suns, Merdythia remained unassailed.

"From the reports that we have received, the swarm will not move from their path for a single world, it is more likely that they will send a couple of the smaller vessels to try and harvest our world before returning to the fleet. It is this that I plan on taking advantage of. By focussing the fleet near Merdythia, I plan to annihilate these two ships using our navy, which should cause the main fleet to return here."

A small portion of the swarm split off from the main swarm and headed round the sun to Merdythia, where they were suddenly removed. The mains swarm then paused, before turning and heading to the planet. Kergis coughed into his hand "How does this help us Vice-Governor, the fleet will have no chance against the main swarm."

I acknowledged that fact with a tight grin. "We did our duty, if this works it will slow the swarm by almost a year, giving the rest of the imperium time to organise a response, and besides…" Merdythia was turned into a miniature sun, engulfing a portion of the hive fleet "I always wanted to end my career with a bang."

There was stunned silence for a moment before Kergis laid back in his chair, exhaling slowly. "Well, I always knew you were mad, but this makes a surprising amount of sense. I assume that is what you meant by the Mortis missiles?" I nodded even as Osthio spoke up, voice more certain now the Inquisitior was gone, focussing on the numbers, as he always did in these situations.

"What are the number and size of warheads? Will help with damage calculations you see." He was already typing away as the others recovered. Kell spoke, slowly and thoughtfully. "You know, what you plan, could be considered treason against the governor. I assume you plan on evacuating our men beforehand, which is why you would keep the fleet so close. Such a move would not go down well at all with the governor."

I nodded "Which is why he must not know until it is too late, I will keep him distracted until it is impossible for him to act, don't worry about that." The assembled people nodded, and the meeting ended shortly without any more contention, leaving me alone in the ornate room. I waved out the serfs and techpriests, wishing for some short time to myself to reflect on the day.

I wandered slowly over to the southern facing wall, which contained several large tinted glass windows, each depicting a different Imperial saint that had something to do with the system. The centre piece was, as always, the one to grab my attention and draw me into walking over to it. It depicted one of the heroic space marines, an Ultramarine in shining blue armour, bedecked in the emperors light as it smote down one of the feral orks that had previously dominated the world and used the humans as slaves or prey.

As I stood there looking up at it, light poured through the window, a gap in the usually cloudy Merdythian weather, and I became awash with the various colours, a feeling of peace washing over me as it did so, a sign from the emperor I am sure, reaching out to reassure me that my idea was not against his will or taking his name in vain.

A moment later, a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention and I spun round, hand reaching for the hilt of my sword, only to freeze when I found myself looking down the blade of a razor sharp sword, mere centimetres from my eye. Despite the fact that I could and probably should have drawn my own sword and knocked the blade away from its dangerous position, that wasn't so much the reason for my inability to move as was the person holding the blade, who spoke with a much harder and colder voice than I remembered.

"My mistress will be most… interested in your plotting behind her back. I did warn her of you Aquila, your charm will be the death of you someday soon, maybe even today depending on what else you are hiding from us..."


End file.
